* "Do you ever tell your monitoring group, 'This bond is trading at 10 cents on the dollar, maybe we should think about downgrading it?" Douglas Lucas, director in CDO research at UBS, to Rudy Bunja, senior v.p. in surveillance at Moody's Investors Service, poking fun at the rating agencies. Bunja took the oft-repeated criticism of the rating agencies in stride and with a smile.
* The famed Plaza Hotel is not shutting down until the end of the month for renovations that will turn many of its hotel rooms into luxury condos, but apparently the A/V guy has already been let go--several speakers had difficulty with their microphones during the first day of the conference.
* The conference's buffet featured mounds of fruit including apples, bananas--and Blackberrys. When did it become acceptable for everyone to incessantly tap away on those wireless devices as if no one can hear them?